Statistical significance and biological relevance:: A call for a more cautious interpretation of results in ecology
Statistical significance and biological relevance:: A call for a more cautious interpretation of results in ecology
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DOI：
10.1016/j.actao.2008.02.004
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发表时间：
2008-07-01
影响因子：
1.8
通讯作者：
Martinez-Abrain, Alejandro
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Martinez-Abrain, Alejandro
不幸的是，在生态学期刊上发现的论文中，作者混淆了统计学意义与生物学相关性或反对零假设的证据强度是很常见的。这些错误不是微不足道的语义问题，因为它们最终可能导致错误的科学结论，从而阻碍生态学知识的长期积累。使用相关性分析作为一个例子，我提出了四种可能的相互作用，可以发生在生物相关性（基于相关系数的值作为效应大小度量）和统计显著性（基于p值）之间。重要的是，我记得支持参数估计或零假设的证据的强度，给定我们的数据，只能通过贝叶斯规则进行评估。(c)2008年，Elsevier Masson SAS。All rights reserved.
Unfortunately it is quite common to find papers in ecology journals in which the authors confound statistical significance with biological relevance or with strength of evidence against the null hypothesis. These mistakes are not trivial semantic problems because they may finally lead to wrong scientific conclusions, and hence to prevent long-term knowledge accumulation in ecology. Using correlation analysis as an example I present the four possible interactions that can take place between biological relevance (based on the value of the correlation coefficient as an effect size metric) and statistical significance (based on p-values). Importantly, I recall that the strength of evidence that supports the parameter estimate or the null hypothesis, given our data, can only be assessed by means of Bayes' rule. (c) 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.